“Humans have always reinvented the meaning of work”

Interview by Nicolas Gastineau.

In The Invention of Work, you retrace the history of work from its origins to the present day. Why talk about an “invention” of work?

Olivier Grenouilleau: I wanted to bring together the answers that people in the Western world have given to a question that they have always asked themselves: why should we – or shouldn’t we – work? From ancient Mesopotamia to today, through the Greco-Roman, medieval, modern, and contemporary worlds, their answers to this question have constantly been rephrased. It’s in this sense that my book bears this title, because humans have always been reinventing the meanings of work. And we realise that the latter is always experienced both as a constraint and as something that goes beyond this constraint. Each era has seen multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings superimposed.

You also clarify some preconceived ideas and myths that we tend associate with the origins of work.

Yes, and there are many. First, contrary to popular opinion, the “you will work by the sweat of your brow” line in Genesis in no way means that work is seen by Christianity as something cursed. The land, whose fruits will be difficult to obtain, is cursed for a time, until the new covenant between God and Noah. And everything in the Bible tells us that labour means producing a noble work.

Here’s another example: it’s often believed that work was discredited among the Ancient Greeks and Romans, but this is due to quotes from Plato or Aristotle out of context. They were talking about manual work for others – not that of the land. Other philosophers, like Socrates, encourage work, and in ancient times, even heroes and gods worked! Hephaestus forges Achilles’ weapons, Apollo builds the walls of Troy... On this subject we have confused the words of philosophers who were disappointed …